Well, it’s now official. The neighborhood of Ocean Beach will remain in District 2. This is significant, as it means that OB will remain in a district with other beach neighborhoods that have similar interests and needs.

Last Thursday, August 25, the redistricting commission finalized their approval of the newly drawn San Diego City Council districts. Many of the former district boundaries were changed, plus a new district, District 9, was created, as voters wished. This redrawing of districts occurs every ten years after the US Census results are studied.

The changes to District 2 are mainly positive. Once again, most of the City’s beach communities will be in one district, except La Jolla. And importantly, District 2 is freed from its burden of “carrying” downtown San Diego. This means that the interests of the communities of the District can be magnified without being diluted by downtown monied interests.

The communities of the beach areas like Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, Mission Bay, the Midway area, Point Loma, and Bay Ho do have similar interests, geographically speaking.

This did occur in the mid-Seventies, when OB was placed into then-District 6 along with the other beach communities. In fact, I was involved with a group called “Common Ground” that unsuccessfully attempted to united together progressives at the beach to back one candidate for the Council.

As the dust settles on the redrawing – and granted, not everyone is happy or satisfied – speculation now runs on whom will be the candidates for the newly-drawn District 2. Kevin Faulconer, the current councilperson, is prevented from running for the seat again as he is termed out.

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, currently representing District 6, lives in Bay Ho and her residence has just moved to District 2. The City Charter states changes in redistricting lines cannot end a council member’s term early, even if a representative no longer lives in the district he or she was elected in.

The San Diego U-T reported that:

Zapf’s spokeswoman, Alex Bell, said the councilwoman does not plan on leaving her home and, if she chose to seek a second term, would likely run for Kevin Faulconer’s District 2 seat.

A lawyer and grassroots activist, I was finally convinced by Patty Jones to start the OB Rag, a blog of citizen journalists, after she got tired of listening to my rants about the news. Way back during the Dinosaurs in 1970, I founded the original Ocean Beach People’s Rag - OB’s famous underground newspaper -, and then later during the early Eighties, published The Whole Damn Pie Shop, a progressive alternative to the Reader.